I
SHE had often been to the of the Thanatopsis, the women's study club, but she had put it off. The Thanatopsis was, Vida Sherwin promised, “such a group, and yet it puts you in touch with all the that are going on everywhere.”
Early in March Mrs. Westlake, wife of the physician, into Carol's living-room like an old and suggested, “My dear, you must come to the Thanatopsis this afternoon. Mrs. Dawson is going to be leader and the is to death. She wanted me to you to come. She says she's sure you will up the meeting with your knowledge of books and writings. (English is our today.) So shoo! Put on your coat!”
“English poetry? Really? I'd love to go. I didn't you were reading poetry.”
“Oh, we're not so slow!”
Mrs. Luke Dawson, wife of the man in town, at them when they appeared. Her of beaver-colored with rows, plasters, and of was for a woman twice her size. She her hands in of chairs, in her with its photograph of Minnehaha Falls in 1890, its “colored enlargement” of Mr. Dawson, its lamp painted with and and on a marble column.
She creaked, “O Mrs. Kennicott, I'm in such a fix. I'm to lead the discussion, and I would you come and help?”
“What do you take up today?” Carol, in her library of “What book do you wish to take out?”
“Why, the English ones.”
“Not all of them?”
“W-why yes. We're learning all of European Literature this year. The such a magazine, Culture Hints, and we its programs. Last year our was Men and Women of the Bible, and next year we'll take up Furnishings and China. My, it make a to keep up with all these new subjects, but it is improving. So will you help us with the today?”
On her way over Carol had to use the Thanatopsis as the tool with which to the town. She had enthusiasm; she had chanted, “These are the people. When the housewives, who the burdens, are in poetry, it means something. I'll work with them—for them—anything!”
Her had thirteen their overshoes, sat meatily, ate peppermints, their fingers, their hands, their thoughts, and the of to deliver her most message. They had Carol affectionately, and she to be a to them. But she insecure. Her chair was out in the open, to their gaze, and it was a hard-slatted, quivery, church-parlor chair, likely to publicly and without warning. It was to on it without the hands and piously.
She wanted to the chair and run. It would make a clatter.
She saw that Vida Sherwin was her. She her wrist, as though she were a noisy child in church, and when she was and again, she listened.
Mrs. Dawson opened the meeting by sighing, “I'm sure I'm to see you all here today, and I that the ladies have prepared a number of very papers, this is such an subject, the poets, they have been an for higher thought, in wasn't it Reverend Benlick who said that some of the have been as much an as a good many of the ministers, and so we shall be to hear——”
The lady neuralgically, with fright, about the small table to her eye-glasses, and continued, “We will have the of Mrs. Jenson on the 'Shakespeare and Milton.'”
Mrs. Ole Jenson said that Shakespeare was in 1564 and died 1616. He in London, England, and in Stratford-on-Avon, which many American loved to visit, a town with many and old houses well examination. Many people that Shakespeare was the play-wright who lived, also a poet. Not much was about his life, but after all that did not make so much difference, they loved to read his plays, of the best of which she would now criticize.
Perhaps the best of his plays was “The Merchant of Venice,” having a love and a of a woman's brains, which a woman's club, those who did not to themselves on the question of suffrage, ought to appreciate. (Laughter.) Mrs. Jenson was sure that she, for one, would love to be like Portia. The play was about a Jew named Shylock, and he didn't want his to a Venice named Antonio——
Mrs. Leonard Warren, a slender, gray, woman, president of the Thanatopsis and wife of the Congregational pastor, reported the birth and death of Byron, Scott, Moore, Burns; and up:
“Burns was a boy and he did not the we today, for the of the old Scotch where he the Word of God more than in the big churches in the big and so-called of today, but he did not have our and Latin and the other of the mind so the, alas, too of our who do not always the to every American boy rich or poor. Burns had to work hard and was sometimes by into low habits. But it is to know that he was a good student and himself, in to the and so-called society-life of Lord Byron, on which I have just spoken. And though the and of his day may have looked upon Burns as a person, many of us have his pieces about the mouse and other subjects, with their message of beauty—I am so sorry I have not got the time to some of them.”
Mrs. George Edwin Mott gave ten minutes to Tennyson and Browning.
Mrs. Nat Hicks, a wry-faced, sweet woman, so by her that Carol wanted to her, the day's by a paper on “Other Poets.” The other of were Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Gray, Mrs. Hemans, and Kipling.
Miss Ella Stowbody with a of “The Recessional” and from “Lalla Rookh.” By request, she gave “An Old Sweetheart of Mine” as encore.
Gopher Prairie had the poets. It was for the next week's labor: English Fiction and Essays.
Mrs. Dawson besought, “Now we will have a of the papers, and I am sure we shall all from one who we to have as a new member, Mrs. Kennicott, who with her and all should be able to give us many and—many helpful pointers.”
Carol had herself not to be so “beastly supercilious.” She had that in the of these work-stained was an which ought to her tears. “But they're so self-satisfied. They think they're doing Burns a favor. They don't they have a 'belated quest.' They're sure that they have and up.” It was out of this of that Mrs. Dawson's her. She was in a panic. How she speak without them?
Mrs. Champ Perry over to her hand and whisper, “You look tired, dearie. Don't you talk unless you want to.”
Affection Carol; she was on her feet, for and courtesies:
“The only thing in the way of suggestion——I know you are a program, but I do wish that now you've had such a introduction, of going on with some other next year you return and take up the more in detail. Especially quotations—even though their are so and, as Mrs. Warren said, so instructive. And there are not mentioned today it might be while considering—Keats, for instance, and Matthew Arnold and Rossetti and Swinburne. Swinburne would be such a—well, that is, such a to life as we all it in our Middle-west——”
She saw that Mrs. Leonard Warren was not with her. She her by continuing:
“Unless Swinburne to be, uh, more than you, than we like. What do you think, Mrs. Warren?”
The pastor's wife decided, “Why, you've my very thoughts, Mrs. Kennicott. Of I have READ Swinburne, but years ago, when he was in vogue, I Mr. Warren saying that Swinburne (or was it Oscar Wilde? but anyway:) he said that though many so-called people and to in Swinburne, there can be without the message from the heart. But at the same time I do think you have an excellent idea, and though we have talked about Furnishings and China as the for next year, I that it would be if the program would try to work in another day to English poetry! In fact, Madame Chairman, I so move you.”
When Mrs. Dawson's coffee and angel's-food had helped them to from the by of Shakespeare's death they all told Carol that it was a to have her with them. The membership retired to the sitting-room for three minutes and elected her a member.
And she stopped being patronizing.
She wanted to be one of them. They were so and kind. It was they who would out her aspiration. Her against village was actually begun! On what should she her army? During the after the meeting Mrs. George Edwin Mott that the city for the modern Gopher Prairie. Mrs. Nat Hicks that the people have free there—the were so exclusive. The city hall. That was it! Carol home.
She had not that Gopher Prairie was a city. From Kennicott she that it was legally with a and city-council and wards. She was by the of one's self a metropolis. Why not?
She was a proud and citizen, all evening.
II
She the city hall, next morning. She had it only as a inconspicuousness. She it a liver-colored a from Main Street. The was an of and dirty windows. It had an view of a and Nat Hicks's tailor shop. It was larger than the shop it, but not so well built.
No one was about. She walked into the corridor. On one was the court, like a country school; on the other, the room of the fire company, with a Ford hose-cart and the used in parades, at the end of the hall, a two-cell jail, now empty but of and sweat. The whole second was a large room with of chairs, a lime-crusted mortar-mixing box, and the of Fourth of July with plaster and red, white, and bunting. At the end was an stage. The room was large for the which Mrs. Nat Hicks advocated. But Carol was after something than dances.
In the she to the public library.
The library was open three afternoons and four a week. It was in an old dwelling, but unattractive. Carol herself reading-rooms, chairs for children, an art collection, a to experiment.
She herself, “Stop this of everything! I WILL be satisfied with the library! The city is for a beginning. And it's an excellent library. It's—it isn't so bad. . . . Is it possible that I am to and in every activity I encounter? In and and government and everything? Is there any contentment, any rest?”
She her as though she were off water, and into the library, a young, light, presence, in coat, suit, fresh collar, and from snow. Miss Villets at her, and Carol purred, “I was so sorry not to see you at the Thanatopsis yesterday. Vida said you might come.”
“Oh. You to the Thanatopsis. Did you it?”
“So much. Such good papers on the poets.” Carol resolutely. “But I did think they should have had you give one of the papers on poetry!”
“Well——Of I'm not one of the that to have the time to take and the club, and if they to have papers on by other ladies who have no training—after all, why should I complain? What am I but a city employee!”
“You're not! You're the one person that does—that does—oh, you do so much. Tell me, is there, uh——Who are the people who the club?”
Miss Villets a date in the of “Frank on the Lower Mississippi” for a small boy, at him as though she were a on his brain, and sighed:
“I wouldn't put myself or any one for the world, and Vida is one of my best friends, and such a teacher, and there is no one in town more and in all movements, but I must say that no who the president or the are, Vida Sherwin to be them all the time, and though she is always telling me about what she is pleased to call my 'fine work in the library,' I notice that I'm not often called on for papers, though Mrs. Lyman Cass once and told me that she my paper on 'The Cathedrals of England' was the most paper we had, the year we took up English and French travel and architecture. But——And of Mrs. Mott and Mrs. Warren are very in the club, as you might of the of the of and the Congregational pastor, and they are very cultured, but——No, you may me as unimportant. I'm sure what I say doesn't a bit!”
“You're much too modest, and I'm going to tell Vida so, and, uh, I wonder if you can give me just a of your time and me where the magazine are kept?”
She had won. She was to a room like a grandmother's attic, where she to house-decoration and town-planning, with a six-year file of the National Geographic. Miss Villets left her alone. Humming, pages with fingers, Carol sat cross-legged on the floor, the in about her.
She pictures of New England streets: the of Falmouth, the of Concord, Stockbridge and Farmington and Hillhouse Avenue. The fairy-book of Forest Hills on Long Island. Devonshire and Essex and a Yorkshire High Street and Port Sunlight. The Arab village of Djeddah—an jewel-box. A town in California which had itself from the and of a Main Street to a way which the a of and gardens.
Assured that she was not in her that a small American town might be lovely, as well as useful in and selling plows, she sat brooding, her thin playing a on her cheeks. She saw in Gopher Prairie a Georgian city hall: warm with white shutters, a fanlight, a wide and stair. She saw it the common home and not only of the town but of the country about. It should the court-room (she couldn't herself to put in a jail), public library, a of excellent prints, rest-room and model for farmwives, theater, lecture room, free ballroom, farm-bureau, gymnasium. Forming about it and by it, as villages about the castle, she saw a new Georgian town as and as Annapolis or that Alexandria to which Washington rode.
All this the Thanatopsis Club was to with no whatever, since its husbands were the of and politics. She was proud of herself for this practical view.
She had taken only an hour to a wire-fenced potato-plot into a rose-garden. She out to Mrs. Leonard Warren, as president of the Thanatopsis, of the which had been worked.
III
At a to three Carol had left home; at half-past four she had the Georgian town; at a to five she was in the of the Congregational parsonage, her upon Mrs. Leonard Warren like rain upon an old roof; at two minutes to five a town of and had been erected, and at two minutes past five the entire town was as as Babylon.
Erect in a black William and Mary chair against and speckly-brown of and Biblical and Palestine upon long shelves, her black shoes on a rag-rug, herself as and low-toned as her background, Mrs. Warren without till Carol was through, then answered delicately:
“Yes, I think you a very picture of what might easily come to pass—some day. I have no that such villages will be on the prairie—some day. But if I might make just the least little criticism: it to me that you are in either that the city would be the proper start, or that the Thanatopsis would be the right instrument. After all, it's the churches, isn't it, that are the of the community. As you may possibly know, my husband is in Congregational circles all through the for his of church-union. He to see all the joined in one body, Catholicism and Christian Science, and properly all movements that make for and prohibition. Here, the churches a club-house, maybe a and half-timber with and all of on it, which, it to me, would be to the ordinary class of people than just a plain old-fashioned house, such as you describe. And that would be the proper center for all and activities, of them into the hands of the politicians.”
“I don't it will take more than thirty or years for the churches to together?” Carol said innocently.
“Hardly that long even; are moving so rapidly. So it would be a mistake to make any other plans.”
Carol did not her till two days after, when she Mrs. George Edwin Mott, wife of the of schools.
Mrs. Mott commented, “Personally, I am with and having the in the house and all, but it would be to have the other members of the Thanatopsis take up the question. Except for one thing: First and foremost, we must have a new schoolbuilding. Mr. Mott says they are cramped.”
Carol to view the old building. The and the high were in a yellow-brick with the narrow of an jail—a which and training. She Mrs. Mott's so that for two days she her own campaign. Then she the and city together, as the center of the town.
She to the lead-colored of Mrs. Dave Dyer. Behind the of winter-stripped and a wide only a above the ground, the was so that Carol it. Nor she anything that was it. But Mrs. Dyer was personal enough. With Carol, Mrs. Howland, Mrs. McGanum, and Vida Sherwin she was a link the Jolly Seventeen and the Thanatopsis (in to Juanita Haydock, who of being a “lowbrow” and publicly that she would “see herself in she'd any old papers”). Mrs. Dyer was in the in which she Carol. Her skin was fine, pale, soft, a weak voluptuousness. At afternoon-coffees she had been but now she Carol as “dear,” and on being called Maud. Carol did not know why she was in this talcum-powder atmosphere, but she to into the fresh air of her plans.
Maud Dyer that the city wasn't “so very nice,” yet, as Dave said, there was no use doing anything about it till they an from the and a new city with a national armory. Dave had verdict, “What these that around the pool-room need is training. Make men of 'em.”
Mrs. Dyer the new from the city hall:
“Oh, so Mrs. Mott has got you going on her craze! She's been at that till everybody's and tired. What she wants is a big office for her dear bald-headed Gawge to around and look in. Of I Mrs. Mott, and I'm very of her, she's so brainy, if she try to in and the Thanatopsis, but I must say we're of her nagging. The old was good for us when we were kids! I these would-be politicians, don't you?”
IV
The week of March had promise of and Carol with a thousand for and and roads. The was gone for under trees, the in a day from wind-bitten to warmth. As soon as Carol was that in this North, again, the came as as a paper in a theater; the it up in a blizzard; and with her of a town of meadows.
But a week later, though the was in heaps, the promise was unmistakable. By the in air and sky and earth which had her every year through ten thousand she that was coming. It was not a scorching, hard, day like the of a week before, but with languor, with a milky light. Rivulets were in each alley; a calling appeared by magic on the crab-apple tree in the Howlands' yard. Everybody chuckled, “Looks like winter is going,” and “This 'll the out of the roads—have the out soon now—wonder what of bass-fishing we'll this summer—ought to be good this year.”
Each Kennicott repeated, “We not take off our Heavy Underwear or the too soon—might be 'nother spell of cold—got to be 'bout cold—wonder if the will last through?”
The of life her the for reforming. She through the house, the with Bea. When she her second meeting of the Thanatopsis she said nothing about the town. She to on Dickens, Thackeray, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Scott, Hardy, Lamb, De Quincey, and Mrs. Humphry Ward, who, it seemed, the of English Fiction and Essays.
Not till she the rest-room did she again a fanatic. She had often at the store-building which had been into a in which wait while their husbands business. She had Vida Sherwin and Mrs. Warren the of the Thanatopsis in the rest-room and in with the city the of it. But she had entered it till this March day.
She in impulsively; at the matron, a named Nodelquist, and at a of farm-women who were rocking. The rest-room a second-hand store. It was with rockers, chairs, a table, a mat, old of being under willow-trees, of roses and fish, and a for lunches. The window was by and by a of and rubber-plants.
While she was to Mrs. Nodelquist's account of how many thousands of farmers' used the rest-room every year, and how much they “appreciated the of the ladies in providing them with this place, and all free,” she thought, “Kindness nothing! The kind-ladies' husbands the farmers' trade. This is accommodation. And it's horrible. It ought to be the most room in town, to of kitchens. Certainly it ought to have a clear window, so that they can see the life go by. Some day I'm going to make a rest-room—a club-room. Why! I've already planned that as part of my Georgian town hall!”
So it that she was against the peace of the Thanatopsis at her third meeting (which Scandinavian, Russian, and Polish Literature, with by Mrs. Leonard Warren on the of the Russian so-called church). Even the entrance of the coffee and Carol on Mrs. Champ Perry, the and ample-bosomed woman who gave to the modern of the Thanatopsis. She out her plans. Mrs. Perry and Carol's hand, but at the end she sighed:
“I wish I agree with you, dearie. I'm sure you're one of the Lord's (even if we don't see you at the Baptist Church as often as we'd like to)! But I'm you're too tender-hearted. When Champ and I came here we teamed-it with an ox-cart from Sauk Centre to Gopher Prairie, and there was nothing here then but a and a soldiers and some cabins. When we wanted salt and gunpowder, we sent out a man on horseback, and he was by the Injuns he got back. We ladies—of we were all farmers at first—we didn't any rest-room in those days. My, we'd have the one they have now was elegant! My house was with and it something terrible when it rained—only place was under a shelf.
“And when the town up we the new city was fine. And I don't see any need for dance-halls. Dancing isn't what it was, anyway. We used to modest, and we had just as much fun as all these do now with their terrible Turkey Trots and and all. But if they must neglect the Lord's that girls ought to be modest, then I they manage well at the K. P. Hall and the Oddfellows', if some of tie don't always welcome a of these and help to all their dances. And I don't see any need of a farm-bureau or this science you talk about. In my day the boys learned to farm by sweating, and every cook, or her ma learned her how across her knee! Besides, ain't there a agent at Wakamin? He comes here once a fortnight, maybe. That's with this scientific farming—Champ says there's nothing to it anyway.
“And as for a lecture hall—haven't we got the churches? Good to to a good old-fashioned than a of and books and that nobody needs to know—more 'n learning right here in the Thanatopsis. And as for trying to make a whole town in this Colonial you talk about——I do love things; to this day I into my petticoats, if Champ Perry laugh at me, the old villain! But just the same I don't any of us old-timers would like to see the town that we so hard to being to make a place that wouldn't look like nothing but some Dutch story-book and not a like the place we loved. And don't you think it's sweet now? All the trees and lawns? And such houses, and hot-water and electric lights and and walks and everything? Why, I from the Twin Cities always said it was such a town!”
Carol herself; that Gopher Prairie had the color of Algiers and the of Mardi Gras.
Yet the next she was on Mrs. Lyman Cass, the hook-nosed of the owner of the flour-mill.
Mrs. Cass's to the crammed-Victorian school, as Mrs. Luke Dawson's to the bare-Victorian. It was on two principles: First, must something else. A had a like a lyre, a near-leather seat cloth, and arms like Scotch Presbyterian lions; with knobs, scrolls, shields, and spear-points on of the chair. The second of the crammed-Victorian was that every of the must be with objects.
The of Mrs. Cass's were with “hand-painted” pictures, “buckeye” pictures, of birch-trees, news-boys, puppies, and church-steeples on Christmas Eve; with a the Exposition Building in Minneapolis, burnt-wood portraits of Indian of no in particular, a pansy-decked motto, a Yard of Roses, and the of the by the Casses' two sons—Chicopee Falls Business College and McGillicuddy University. One small square table a card-receiver of painted with a of and lead, a Family Bible, Grant's Memoirs, the latest by Mrs. Gene Stratton Porter, a model of a Swiss which was also a bank for dimes, a one black-headed pin and one empty spool, a pin-cushion in a metal with “Souvenir of Troy, N. Y.” on the toe, and an red dish which had warts.
Mrs. Cass's was, “I must you all my and art objects.”
She piped, after Carol's appeal:
“I see. You think the New England villages and Colonial houses are so much more than these Middlewestern towns. I'm you that way. You'll be to know I was in Vermont.”
“And don't you think we ought to try to make Gopher Prai——”
“My no! We can't it. Taxes are much too high as it is. We ought to retrench, and not let the city another cent. Uh——Don't you think that was a paper Mrs. Westlake read about Tolstoy? I was so she pointed out how all his ideas failed.”
What Mrs. Cass said was what Kennicott said, that evening. Not in twenty years would the or Gopher Prairie vote the for a new city hall.
V
Carol had her plans to Vida Sherwin. She was of the big-sister manner; Vida would either laugh at her or the idea and it to herself. But there was no other hope. When Vida came in to tea Carol sketched her Utopia.
Vida was but decisive:
“My dear, you're all off. I would like to see it: a place to out the gales. But it can't be done. What the accomplish?”
“Their husbands are the most men in town. They ARE the town!”
“But the town as a unit is not the husband of the Thanatopsis. If you the trouble we had in the city to the money and the pumping-station with vines! Whatever you may think of Gopher Prairie women, they're twice as progressive as the men.”
“But can't the men see the ugliness?”
“They don't think it's ugly. And how can you prove it? Matter of taste. Why should they like what a Boston likes?”
“What they like is to sell prunes!”
“Well, why not? Anyway, the point is that you have to work from the inside, with what we have, than from the outside, with ideas. The ought not to be on the spirit. It can't be! The has to out of the spirit, and it. That means waiting. If we keep after the city for another ten years they MAY vote the for a new school.”
“I to that if they saw it the big men would be too tight-fisted to a each for a building—think!—dancing and and plays, all done co-operatively!”
“You mention the word 'co-operative' to the merchants and they'll you! The one thing they more than mail-order houses is that farmers' co-operative movements may started.”
“The that lead to pocket-books! Always, in everything! And I don't have any of the of fiction: the and speeches by torchlight. I'm by stupidity. Oh, I know I'm a fool. I of Venice, and I live in Archangel and the Northern aren't tender-colored. But at least they sha'n't keep me from Venice, and I'll away——All right. No more.”
She out her hands in a of renunciation.
VI
Early May; up in like grass; and potatoes being planted; the land humming. For two days there had been rain. Even in town the were a of mud, to view and difficult to cross. Main Street was a black from to curb; on the the walks water. It was hot, yet the town was under the sky. Softened neither by by the houses and scowled, in their harshness.
As she Carol looked with at her clay-loaded rubbers, the of her skirt. She passed Lyman Cass's pinnacled, dark-red, house. She a yellow pool. This was not her home, she insisted. Her home, and her town, in her mind. They had already been created. The was done. What she had been was some one to them with her. Vida would not; Kennicott not.
Some one to her refuge.
Suddenly she was of Guy Pollock.
She him. He was too cautious. She needed a as and as her own. And she would it. Youth would come singing. She was beaten.
Yet that same she had an idea which solved the of Gopher Prairie.
Within ten minutes she was the old-fashioned bell-pull of Luke Dawson. Mrs. Dawson opened the door and about the of it. Carol her cheek, and into the sitting-room.
“Well, well, you're a for eyes!” Mr. Dawson, his newspaper, pushing his on his forehead.
“You so excited,” Mrs. Dawson.
“I am! Mr. Dawson, aren't you a millionaire?”
He his head, and purred, “Well, I if I in on all my and farm-holdings and my in iron on the Mesaba and in Northern and cut-over lands, I push two close, and I've every of it by hard work and having the to not go out and every——”
“I think I want most of it from you!”
The Dawsons at each other in of the jest; and he chirped, “You're than Reverend Benlick! He don't me for more than ten dollars—at a time!”
“I'm not joking. I it! Your children in the Cities are grown-up and well-to-do. You don't want to die and your name unknown. Why not do a big, original thing? Why not the whole town? Get a great architect, and have him plan a town that would be to the prairie. Perhaps he'd create some new of architecture. Then tear all these buildings——”
Mr. Dawson had that she did it. He wailed, “Why, that would cost at least three or four dollars!”
“But you alone, just one man, have two of those millions!”
“Me? Spend all my hard-earned cash on houses for a of that had the to save their money? Not that I've been mean. Mama always have a girl to do the work—when we one. But her and I have our to the and—spend it on a of these rascals——?”
“Please! Don't be angry! I just mean—I mean——Oh, not all of it, of course, but if you off the list, and the others came in, and if they you talk about a more town——”
“Why now, child, you've got a of notions. Besides what's the with the town? Looks good to me. I've had people that have all over the world tell me time and again that Gopher Prairie is the place in the Middlewest. Good for anybody. Certainly good for Mama and me. Besides! Mama and me are to go out to Pasadena and a and live there.”
VII
She had met Miles Bjornstam on the street. For the second of welcome this with the and the nearer than any one else to the which she was to her, and she told him, as a anecdote, a little of her story.
He grunted, “I I'd be with Old Man Dawson, the penny-pinching old land-thief—and a he is, too. But you got the slant. You aren't one of the people—yet. You want to do something for the town. I don't! I want the town to do something for itself. We don't want old Dawson's money—not if it's a gift, with a string. We'll take it away from him, it to us. You got to more iron and into you. Come join us bums, and some day—when we educate ourselves and being bums—we'll take and 'em straight.”
He had from her friend to a man in overalls. She not the of “cheerful bums.”
She him as she the of town.
She had replaced the city project by an new and of how little was done for these poor.
VIII
The of the is not a but and soon away. The of a days ago are and the them have into of black earth like leather.
Carol was as she to the meeting of the Thanatopsis program which was to decide the for next and winter.
Madam Chairman (Miss Ella Stowbody in an oyster-colored blouse) asked if there was any new business.
Carol rose. She that the Thanatopsis ought to help the of the town. She was so and modern. She did not, she said, want for them, but a of self-help; an bureau, direction in and making stews, possibly a fund for home-building. “What do you think of my plans, Mrs. Warren?” she concluded.
Speaking judiciously, as one related to the church by marriage, Mrs. Warren gave verdict:
“I'm sure we're all in with Mrs. Kennicott in that is encountered, it is not only but a to our to the less ones. But I must say it to me we should the whole point of the thing by not it as charity. Why, that's the of the true Christian and the church! The Bible has it for our guidance. 'Faith, Hope, and CHARITY,' it says, and, 'The ye have with ye always,' which that there can be anything to these so-called scientific for charity, never! And isn't it so? I should to think of a world in which we were of all the of giving. Besides, if these they're charity, and not something to which they have a right, they're so much more grateful.”
“Besides,” Miss Ella Stowbody, “they've been you, Mrs. Kennicott. There isn't any here. Take that Mrs. Steinhof you speak of: I send her our there's too much for our girl—I must have sent her ten dollars' the past year alone! I'm sure Papa would approve of a city home-building fund. Papa says these are fakers. Especially all these farmers that they have so much trouble and machinery. Papa says they won't pay their debts. He says he's sure he to mortgages, but it's the only way to make them respect the law.”
“And then think of all the we give these people!” said Mrs. Jackson Elder.
Carol again. “Oh yes. The clothes. I was going to speak of that. Don't you think that when we give to the poor, if we do give them old ones, we ought to them and make them as as we can? Next Christmas when the Thanatopsis makes its distribution, wouldn't it be if we got together and on the clothes, and hats, and them——”
“Heavens and earth, they have more time than we have! They ought to be good and to anything, no what shape it's in. I know I'm not going to and for that lazy Mrs. Vopni, with all I've got to do!” Ella Stowbody.
They were at Carol. She that Mrs. Vopni, husband had been killed by a train, had ten children.
But Mrs. Mary Ellen Wilks was smiling. Mrs. Wilks was the of Ye Art Shoppe and Magazine and Book Store, and the reader of the small Christian Science church. She it all clear:
“If this class of people had an of Science and that we are the children of God and nothing can us, they wouldn't be in error and poverty.”
Mrs. Jackson Elder confirmed, “Besides, it me the is already doing enough, with tree-planting and the anti-fly and the for the rest-room—to say nothing of the that we've talked of trying to the to put in a park at the station!”
“I think so too!” said Madam Chairman. She at Miss Sherwin. “But what do you think, Vida?”
Vida at each of the committee, and announced, “Well, I don't we'd start anything more right now. But it's been a to Carol's dear ideas, hasn't it! Oh! There is one thing we must decide on at once. We must together and oppose any move on the part of the Minneapolis to elect another State Federation president from the Twin Cities. And this Mrs. Edgar Potbury they're forward—I know there are people who think she's a speaker, but I her as very shallow. What do you say to my to the Lake Ojibawasha Club, telling them that if their will support Mrs. Warren for second vice-president, we'll support their Mrs. Hagelton (and such a dear, lovely, woman, too) for president.”
“Yes! We ought to up those Minneapolis folks!” Ella Stowbody said acidly. “And oh, by the way, we must oppose this movement of Mrs. Potbury's to have the come out definitely in of woman suffrage. Women haven't any place in politics. They would all their and if they in these plots and log-rolling and all this political about and and so on.”
All—save one—nodded. They the business-meeting to discuss Mrs. Edgar Potbury's husband, Mrs. Potbury's income, Mrs. Potbury's sedan, Mrs. Potbury's residence, Mrs. Potbury's style, Mrs. Potbury's coat, Mrs. Potbury's coiffure, and Mrs. Potbury's on the State Federation of Women's Clubs.
Before the program they took three minutes to decide which of the by the magazine Culture Hints, Furnishings and China, or The Bible as Literature, would be for the year. There was one incident. Mrs. Dr. Kennicott and off again. She commented, “Don't you think that we already of the Bible in our churches and Sunday Schools?”
Mrs. Leonard Warren, out of order but much more out of temper, cried, “Well upon my word! I didn't there was any one who that we of the Bible! I if the Grand Old Book has the of for these two thousand years it is our SLIGHT consideration!”
“Oh, I didn't mean——” Carol begged. Inasmuch as she did mean, it was hard to be lucid. “But I wish, of ourselves either to the Bible, or to about the Brothers Adam's wigs, which Culture Hints to as the point about furniture, we study some of the ideas that are up today—whether it's or or labor problems—the that are going to so much.”
Everybody her throat.
Madam Chairman inquired, “Is there any other discussion? Will some one make a motion to the of Vida Sherwin—to take up Furnishings and China?”
It was adopted, unanimously.
“Checkmate!” Carol, as she up her hand.
Had she actually that she plant a of in the blank of mediocrity? How had she into the of trying to plant anything in a so and sun-glazed, and so satisfying to the happy within?
